On Jan­u­ary 1, 1984, 25 mil­lion view­ers tuned in to watch Good Morn­ing, Mr. Orwell!, a live satel­lite pro­gram cre­at­ed by the Kore­an-born video artist, Nam June Paik. Accord­ing to reports in The New York Times, Paik cre­at­ed the pro­gram with the hope of prov­ing that tele­vi­sion could be “an instru­ment for inter­na­tion­al under­stand­ing rather than an omi­nous means of thought con­trol,” as George Orwell warned in 1984. And Paik made his pitch with the help of names you’ll rec­og­nize from the 1980s cul­tur­al scene (assum­ing your mem­o­ry goes back that far) — Peter Gabriel, Lau­rie Ander­son, George Plimp­ton, Oin­go Boin­go, Philip Glass, the Thomp­son Twins, Mer­ce Cun­ning­ham and Allen Gins­berg.

Above, we’re fea­tur­ing one mem­o­rable per­for­mance from Good Morn­ing, Mr. Orwell!, which aired on PBS sta­tions across the US: the avant-garde com­pos­er John Cage play­ing ampli­fied cac­ti and plant mate­ri­als with noth­ing but a feath­er. Joined on stage by fel­low com­pos­er Take­hisa Kosu­gi, Cage per­forms an impro­vi­sa­tion that could have accom­pa­nied a Mer­ce Cun­ning­ham dance. Mean­while, George Plimp­ton, a founder of The Paris Review and the host of Good Morn­ing, Mr. Orwell!, pro­vides some nar­ra­tion.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Cage Unbound: A New Dig­i­tal Archive Pre­sent­ed by The New York Pub­lic Library

John Cage Per­forms Water Walk on “I’ve Got a Secret” (1960)

The Con­tro­ver­sial Sounds of Silence: John Cage’s 4’33″ Per­formed by the BBC Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra

Oh, not anoth­er Bowie post! Oh yes, yes it is. We don’t keep our love for Bowie secret, and along with his first album in ten years comes new archival mate­r­i­al: new to us that is, and maybe to you too.

Now, if your pri­ma­ry expe­ri­ence of Bowie was through his ear­ly 70s char­ac­ter Zig­gy Star­dust—a rock opera cre­ation as much as Hed­wig or Dr. Frank-N-Furter—it would be easy to believe Bowie was Zig­gy. He inhab­it­ed the char­ac­ter so ful­ly that it’s hard to imag­ine he was play­ing a very delib­er­ate part the whole time.

But of course, he was. Zig­gy and the Spi­ders were, as Bowie says above, a “the­ater piece.” Pre­vi­ous­ly, we’ve fea­tured a doc­u­men­tary (see again below) that chron­i­cles the rise of Zig­gy Star­dust, from Bowie’s some­what obscure begin­nings to his break­out as the char­ac­ter. In the 1977 inter­view clip above from the CBC, watch Bowie, as him­self, describe the expe­ri­ence of being Zig­gy.

He talks of his influences—a mélange of kabu­ki the­ater, mime, and New York art rock (“Vel­vet Under­ground, what­ev­er”). He calls the music from Zig­gy Star­dust and the Spi­ders From Mars “a British view of Amer­i­can street ener­gy.” In ret­ro­spect, it’s easy to see the act as just that, but in the moment, Bowie’s fans believed in Zig­gy as sure­ly as they believed any­thing else. Watch, for exam­ple, as starstruck audi­ence mem­bers rap­tur­ous­ly mouth the words to “Moon­age Day­dream” in this clip from D.A. Pennebaker’s Zig­gy Star­dust film.

P
ennebaker’s film caught Bowie’s final per­for­mance as the alien rock star at London’s Ham­mer­smith in 1973. No doubt these fans were hor­ri­bly crushed when Zig­gy announced his retire­ment before the final song. But I’m sure they kept their elec­tric eye on the re-invent­ed Bowie in Berlin, a peri­od he also dis­cuss­es above, when he left L.A. for Ger­many and began work­ing with Bri­an Eno and Iggy Pop.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sto­ry of Zig­gy Star­dust: How David Bowie Cre­at­ed the Char­ac­ter that Made Him Famous

David Bowie Sings ‘I Got You Babe’ with Mar­i­anne Faith­full in His Last Per­for­mance As Zig­gy Star­dust

David Bowie Releas­es Vin­tage Videos of His Great­est Hits from the 1970s and 1980s

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Very ear­ly in his career as a band­leader, Miles Davis devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for a too-cool per­sona on stage. Whether turn­ing his back on the crowd or walk­ing off­stage while his side­men soloed, his refusal to cater to audi­ence expec­ta­tions only enhanced his mys­tique. What­ev­er fans and crit­ics made of Miles’ seem­ing contempt—political state­ment, eccen­tric­i­ty, or daz­zling egotism—his live play­ing trans­fixed those who had the priv­i­lege to see him and con­sis­tent­ly drew the best play­ers in his­to­ry into his orbit.

The six­ties saw him at the peak of his pow­ers as a live per­former. He hit the pop charts in the ear­ly part of the decade with the 1962 two-LP set In Per­son, record­ed over two nights at the Black­hawk in San Fran­cis­co. The very next month he record­ed the Gram­my-nom­i­nat­ed Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall with an orches­tra led by Gil Evans. In 2007, a never‑before released live gem from the 1963 Mon­terey Jazz Fes­ti­val thrilled fans (lis­ten to “So What” from that record­ing above). All of these record­ings cap­ture Davis dur­ing his “tran­si­tion peri­od,” between his first and sec­ond “great quin­tets” (which fea­tured John Coltrane and Wayne Short­er on sax, respec­tive­ly).

Direct­ly above, hear a less­er-known, offi­cial­ly unre­leased record­ing from that tran­si­tion­al peri­od. Cap­tured by French pub­lic broad­cast­ing com­pa­ny ORFT, the ses­sions took place at the Juan-Les-Pins Fes­ti­val in Antibes in July 26–28, 1963, just a few months before Mon­terey. Davis is backed here by the same ensem­ble: George Cole­man on tenor sax, Her­bie Han­cock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and (then sev­en­teen-year-old) Tony Williams on drums. These record­ings rep­re­sent alter­nates and out­takes from the record orig­i­nal­ly released in ’64 as In Europe, reis­sued in 1989 as Miles in Antibes. The full track­list (below) is book­end­ed by two ver­sions of Kind of Blue open­er “So What,” and it’s inter­est­ing to com­pare these wild­ly fre­net­ic ’63 live iter­a­tions from Mon­terey and Antibes to the clas­sic of laid-back cool from the late 50s.

1. So What (July 26, 1963)

2  Stel­la By Starlight (July 26)

3. Sev­en Steps To Heav­en – Walkin’ (July 26)

4. If I were a Bell (July 28, 1963)

5. So What (July 28)

Davis’ first and sec­ond “great quin­tets” are per­haps his most-loved groups. How­ev­er, the short-lived 1963 ensem­ble above cer­tain­ly pushed him in a new direc­tion. For anoth­er piv­otal moment of tran­si­tion, watch the 1969 return to the Juan-Les-Pins Jazz Fest in the video below, which shows Davis again mov­ing in a very dif­fer­ent direc­tion, pre­sag­ing his ’70s swerves into acid rock and funk. This per­for­mance fea­tures anoth­er all-star ensem­ble, with Wayne Short­er on tenor and sopra­no sax, Chick Corea on elec­tric piano, Dave Hol­land on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

via Past Dai­ly

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Miles Davis Sto­ry, the Defin­i­tive Film Biog­ra­phy of a Jazz Leg­end

Miles Davis and His ‘Sec­ond Great Quin­tet,’ Filmed Live in Europe, 1967

‘The Sound of Miles Davis’: Clas­sic 1959 Per­for­mance with John Coltrane

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness